I had to come in here just to announce that for however brief a time this lasts:

I beat Ping's score.

This wasn't one of his insane 13 billion pointers, I know. It was undoubtedly something where he let the dog play while he looked over the table, but I toppled him on Boba Fett.

Almost happened on Clone Wars, too. In fact, if I had liked that table more, I might have given it another go to try to do it again for the brief window of glory.

The voices are all over the place, as Crawley said. The worst, IMO, is Vader. Clone Wars Yoda may be accurate, but he gets really annoying and is often saying nonsense. More so than usual. I actually thought Luke might have been Mark Hammill, though he sounded much younger. I thought it was weird that there is no Leia voice at all.

I was going to disagree with you, Crawley, on your ranking of the tables, but then I figured out that you were talking about how easy they are to score on, and that's accurate. CW, BF and ESB. But I think Clone Wars is the most complex table. I scored really high (for me), but I had no idea what I was doing. I think it's a busy table, graphically. Just too much going on.

I may have to try a different viewing angle again, though. I have a really hard time picking one that's just right.

Boba Fett seemed a little less complicated, but I wasn't always sure what I was doing (I have no idea how to get the skill shot, for example, but I did it). Also, what's the deal with the font on Boba Fett's name? It looks like a heavy metal album. This seemed like a decent table, though.

Empire Strikes Back, while challenging, was the clearest of the tables, IMO. Very early on, I knew exactly what I had to do to make the chapter selection appear, then how to progress in most* of the chapters (though I can't get further than the second stage on any of them), and also how to make Vader appear. There's a lot of variety to this table, too. Definitely my favorite of the group. Clean, clear, fun, and the right level of challenging.

I had to come in here just to announce that for however brief a time this lasts:

I beat Ping's score.

This wasn't one of his insane 13 billion pointers, I know. It was undoubtedly something where he let the dog play while he looked over the table, but I toppled him on Boba Fett.

Almost happened on Clone Wars, too. In fact, if I had liked that table more, I might have given it another go to try to do it again for the brief window of glory.

The voices are all over the place, as Crawley said. The worst, IMO, is Vader. Clone Wars Yoda may be accurate, but he gets really annoying and is often saying nonsense. More so than usual. I actually thought Luke might have been Mark Hammill, though he sounded much younger. I thought it was weird that there is no Leia voice at all.

I was going to disagree with you, Crawley, on your ranking of the tables, but then I figured out that you were talking about how easy they are to score on, and that's accurate. CW, BF and ESB. But I think Clone Wars is the most complex table. I scored really high (for me), but I had no idea what I was doing. I think it's a busy table, graphically. Just too much going on.

I may have to try a different viewing angle again, though. I have a really hard time picking one that's just right.

Boba Fett seemed a little less complicated, but I wasn't always sure what I was doing (I have no idea how to get the skill shot, for example, but I did it). Also, what's the deal with the font on Boba Fett's name? It looks like a heavy metal album. This seemed like a decent table, though.

Empire Strikes Back, while challenging, was the clearest of the tables, IMO. Very early on, I knew exactly what I had to do to make the chapter selection appear, then how to progress in most* of the chapters (though I can't get further than the second stage on any of them), and also how to make Vader appear. There's a lot of variety to this table, too. Definitely my favorite of the group. Clean, clear, fun, and the right level of challenging.

*Not sure how to make Chewie help Han

Good job on the score I will put in some time on the tables this weekend to see how they work but my racquetball playing time and training has been cutting into my playtime on the 360 big time.

I had to come in here just to announce that for however brief a time this lasts:

I beat Ping's score.

This wasn't one of his insane 13 billion pointers, I know. It was undoubtedly something where he let the dog play while he looked over the table, but I toppled him on Boba Fett.

Almost happened on Clone Wars, too. In fact, if I had liked that table more, I might have given it another go to try to do it again for the brief window of glory.

The voices are all over the place, as Crawley said. The worst, IMO, is Vader. Clone Wars Yoda may be accurate, but he gets really annoying and is often saying nonsense. More so than usual. I actually thought Luke might have been Mark Hammill, though he sounded much younger. I thought it was weird that there is no Leia voice at all.

I was going to disagree with you, Crawley, on your ranking of the tables, but then I figured out that you were talking about how easy they are to score on, and that's accurate. CW, BF and ESB. But I think Clone Wars is the most complex table. I scored really high (for me), but I had no idea what I was doing. I think it's a busy table, graphically. Just too much going on.

I may have to try a different viewing angle again, though. I have a really hard time picking one that's just right.

Boba Fett seemed a little less complicated, but I wasn't always sure what I was doing (I have no idea how to get the skill shot, for example, but I did it). Also, what's the deal with the font on Boba Fett's name? It looks like a heavy metal album. This seemed like a decent table, though.

Empire Strikes Back, while challenging, was the clearest of the tables, IMO. Very early on, I knew exactly what I had to do to make the chapter selection appear, then how to progress in most* of the chapters (though I can't get further than the second stage on any of them), and also how to make Vader appear. There's a lot of variety to this table, too. Definitely my favorite of the group. Clean, clear, fun, and the right level of challenging.

*Not sure how to make Chewie help Han

Good job on the score I will put in some time on the tables this weekend to see how they work but my racquetball playing time and training has been cutting into my playtime on the 360 big time.

Ping, just play it while you're sleeping. You'll centuplify my score in no time.

(reposted from Portable Gaming...didn't realize there was a thread over here for it)

Played the ESB Star Wars Pinball table on iOS last night. It's neat, but the ball physics feel completely off. The ball bounces in totally unexpected directions, it seems to "stick" to things it shouldn't, it goes faster or slower than it should, there's a weird lag as it goes around ramps, etc. The worst offender seems to be the top loop. Anytime the ball goes by the upper flippers, it just sorta stops for 1/2 second and totally screws up the timing.

The screwy physics kinda ruin the whole thing...not sure that I'll bother with the other two SW tables.

And for the ball speeding up I think that is intentional too as the ball skin changes to a red skin for the duration its going fast, then goes back to the normal silver skin. To me that's just normal Zen wackiness. It's caught me off guard a few times and lost balls because of it.

FYI my rankings of table difficulty were how hard the tables were to me on my initial play throughs. I had the hardest time figuring out how to complete scenes on the Empire table and the least amount of trouble completing missions on the Clonewars table. On the Empire table Luke was having a hell of a time finding his light sabre on Hoth, he couldn't concentrate enough for Yoda, and the AT-AT was free to stomp as I couldn't locate the tow cables. On the Clonewars table I was loading up injured on to the ship wherever it was landing, deactivating force fields and even got to a mini-pinball table section - where admittedly I couldn't hit any of the drop targets and lost the ball pretty quickly.

I read through the Empire instructions before I went to bed last night and that helped clear things up - basically each scene has you shooting various lit up lanes, which I wasn't noticing were lit up. I haven't had a chance to go back and actually play the table again after reading that so hoping I can put in to play what is clear now.

There's a magnet next to each of the top flippers that is intended to stop the ball shortly before them to aid in you hitting it.

Ah...I just thought it was some sort of glitch. Seems like a strange thing to include, but maybe that's just me.

I've been spending a ton of time lately with Pinball Arcade (i.e. reproductions of actual tables), which has kinda spoiled me. Lots of the strange, non-realistic things they put in these Zen tables don't really jive with me.

There's a magnet next to each of the top flippers that is intended to stop the ball shortly before them to aid in you hitting it.

Ah...I just thought it was some sort of glitch. Seems like a strange thing to include, but maybe that's just me.

I've been spending a ton of time lately with Pinball Arcade (i.e. reproductions of actual tables), which has kinda spoiled me. Lots of the strange, non-realistic things they put in these Zen tables don't really jive with me.

There's a few tables in Pinball Arcade that use magnets like that too. Theatre of Magic uses them to save the ball from draining out down the side lanes - the ball will start to drain then "magically" be pulled back in to play. Tales of the Arabian Knights also has one at the small platform in front of the Genie to hold the ball before multiball triggers. Twilight Zone has the magnetic flippers which are fun and the ball will stop due to a magnet at the spiral locations when those are active.

I'm more drawn towards the realistic table play than the Zen stuff but some of the Zen stuff is a lot of fun too.

The Professional & Amateur Pinball Association (apparently a real thing) has put up some very in-depth video guides to a few of the real tables found in Pinball Arcade. They provide a great walkthrough of the specifics...I improved my Medieval Madness high score by 20 million after watching this. As with anything done by a master of their craft, it's amazing watching these guys play these tables. There's a skill level that I never even knew existed on display here. I keep trying to "catch" the ball like they do, and failing miserably.

The main page is here, and you can link to the individual tables from there.

I'm really not very good at this table. I'm struggling to hit 50M while the leaders in the clubhouse are over a billion. For reference, last I checked, Ping had a score around 150M, though I believe that's on limited playtime.

After watching videos of the pros and seeing some of the crazy scores people are posting, I have come to the conclusion that I just flat out suck at pinball. It's all the more frustrating now that I actually know what I'm supposed to be doing, then bricking shot after shot or draining because I'm an idiot.

Gratch if you keep at it and play often your skills will improve I've spent countless hrs as a kid playing pinball and videogames my wasted youth lol.

That's what I thought, but it seems the more I play lately, the worse I get. I hit a high score on Medival Madness of 39 million right after watching the tutorial video, and haven't even come close to it in 100+ games since. Frustrating.

Most games will have an effect that you're probably experiencing here. Once you find out what you're supposed to be doing, you'll do worse for a bit until you get better. Fighting games are especially bad like this. Once you understand the combos you should be doing, you'll probably lose to someone just wailing away until you get them down.

Gratch if you keep at it and play often your skills will improve I've spent countless hrs as a kid playing pinball and videogames my wasted youth lol.

That's what I thought, but it seems the more I play lately, the worse I get. I hit a high score on Medival Madness of 39 million right after watching the tutorial video, and haven't even come close to it in 100+ games since. Frustrating.

Medieval Madness is a difficult table as its so fast and the ball will drain quickly if you're not paying attention. If you're looking to just score points I would just focus on the castle - the gate and the side entrance. The other "madness" modes will open up naturally as you play.

If you're looking to cut your teeth on Pinball Arcade tables I would recommend Creature from the Black Lagoon. Creature is a pretty slow table. It'll allow you to practice lining up shots for the left and right ramps, along with center shots. Its also slow enough that you can easily catch the balls with the flippers giving you control over your shots. The multi-ball is only 2-balls so easy to manage. Plus there's a pretty fun video mode - one of the better ones.

It's a table you can really work up your skills on.

The only catch is its a low scoring table if you don't know what you are doing (read the instructions). But basically to score high you have to master shooting the left ramp a bunch of times and then shooting up the center. Once you can do that consistently you'll get a pretty decent score when you want it. Not a fun way to play the table but its a good thing to try and master first before moving on to the other scoring methods.

I would suggest the Plants Vs Zombies table. I have a blast on that table and it feels a lot less random to me than others. I pretty much never have a side lane drain on it which goes a long way towards instilling confidence imo.

So I've been slowly coming around to the Zen Pinball tables. They're typically cheaper ($2/table instead of $4 or $5 for Pinball Arcade), and while the ball physics aren't nearly as good, some of the crazy things they do with them are a blast. My just wish they would get some licenses other than Marvel, as I'm not really much of a huge superhero fan. Many of the tables are very good (the "Fear Itself" table is my current favorite), but I'd love to see more of either the generic Excalibur/Epic Quest-ish tables, or another big license. How cool would a LOTR table be?

I bought the Plants Vs Zombies table yesterday(its on sale for 120 points),i quite liked it,and it was easy enough to unlock the achievement

Still not got around to getting the Star Wars or Avengers tables

Avengers tables are half price off as well(800>>400),and Pinball FX classics(same price),but not sure whether i have those ones or not

the xbl sale is until Monday

I am wondering what's going to happen with Pinball FX3,they said March 2012 it was at least a year away,so we could see it soon...hopefully they don't delay it to go next gen,because then i can't see how we could transfer tables across like we did with Pinball FX2 from FX1

so i picked up Star Wars Pinball tables,and surprisingly enough i think The Clone Wars table is the best,it a nice high scoring table as well

The Clone Wars-Best,a bit crowded on the table but its enjoyable and as said high scoring and the 'fake showperson' voice telling you things(like Multiball locked or save ball activated) is a help sometimes

Empire Strikes Back-good,but not really sure where to aim half the time...and not sure what to do with the First Person segments(yes i try to reflect the training orbs lasers but it doesn't work at all)

Boba Fett-okay,disappointed though,the fucking ball keeps going down the sides more often than any other table so i feel as though i have no control over it with it happening all the time

These new Star Wars tables are awesome. I like the Starfighter one best, followed by the Vader, then ROTJ. They seem to have futzed with the ball physics on the ROTJ table...feels like you're playing with a rubber bouncy ball.

Pinball FX2 was supposed to come out on Xbone this week. It got delayed at the last second for a very good reason.

Originally, Microsoft wasn't going to allow Zen Studios any sort of table transfer for previous owners of the game. Zen apologized, but said there was nothing they could do about it, and it wasn't going to change.

I was ready to buy everything again for PS4, but decided to wait and see the Xbone release happen first. I'm glad I did.

Obviously, I wasn't the only one upset with the MS decision.

Quote

First of all, we’d like to thank you all for your feedback on our announcement of the Xbox One version of Pinball FX2. We cannot underestimate the importance of your support, insight, and yes, even criticism regarding our projects.

We have a few announcements to make affecting Pinball FX2 fans and particularly the Xbox One version of the game.

Microsoft and Zen Studios have taken your feedback to heart, and seeing that many of you were very upset with the news that table transfers between Xbox 360 and Xbox One would not be happening, we have some good news for you! We will be able to implement table transfers on Xbox One starting from Pinball FX2’s launch. Any available table on Xbox One that was previously purchased for Xbox 360 can be imported to the new version free of charge.

However, as this process will take a bit more development time for the game, Pinball FX2 version of Xbox One will see a slight delay from its original release date this week to sometime in August. We apologize to any fans affected by this delay, but we pledge to make it up to you by incorporating this highly desired feature.

Once again, we cannot thank you enough for your support through this process, as well as Microsoft’s, who took your feedback very seriously and worked with us to implement this feature. And again, we do apologize for the delay while we create the Pinball FX2 experience that our fans both want and deserve. We’re excited to bring Pinball FX2 to Xbox One owners, to have their previous purchases honored and transferred, and we can’t wait to share with you what we’ve got coming in the future.